Operation Backlog Completion 2026

Celebrating All Things Mysterious: Touch Detective 3

 Celebrating All Things Mysterious, Reviews, Video games  6 Responses »  Tagged with: ,
May 262025
 

As we enter the final week of this year’s Celebrating All Things Mysterious, let’s discuss the third and final game included in Touch Detective 3 + The Complete Case Files.

Touch Detective 3 is the third entry in the series and the most recent one to be released. For the west, that was after a significant length of time, but there was a bit of a time gap for the original Japanese release, too.

The first Touch Detective, which we discussed near the start of the month, originally came out for the Nintendo DS in 2006. Touch Detective 2 1/2, which we talked about last week, followed in 2007.

Touch Detective 3 didn’t come out until 2014, for the 3DS.

In other words, the first two games released a year apart, but there were seven years between the second and third games. It’s little wonder that the third game feels the most different. (And since it wasn’t localized until the collection came out last year, western fans waited an additional ten years on top of that. Never say it’s too late to hope.)

The first thing I noticed was that the UI had changed. It still functionally plays the same way, but the icons are in different spots and the inventory is spread across the bottom of the screen instead of being confined to the corner. It also has save slots, instead of a single save. Strangely enough, the resolution seems to be slightly worse than the older games, although it’s still fine.

After I completed the standard tutorial section, I got another surprise, as the game rewarded me with… Funghi Coins? Soon afterwards, I also received a Funghi Coin while tapping something in the environment. What is this, Professor Layton??

Yes, the most notable addition to Touch Detective’s gameplay is that you can now find Funghi Coins hidden in the environment, as well as being rewarded with them for completing each case. These coins actually can be spent on hints, but I never used them for that. Instead, I used them to fill out my figurine collection; yes, there are now collectible Funghi Figurines you can get by spending your coins on a lottery to get a random figurine and spending 5 coins to combine two to get another one. It’s a bit too luck-based for me to completely fill out my collection, but it still made for a fun change of pace every now and then.

The cases feel a bit more disconnected from each other again, although there are some narrative threads throughout, including the return of the Cornstalker.

We also see the addition of yet another detective rival for Mackenzie. (Maybe they’re going for the Ace Attorney approach, where you get a new main rival in each game.) He doesn’t dominate the story to the exclusion of the previous rivals, though, and he has a great theme song, so I don’t even mind.

Now, this is by far the easiest Touch Detective game. I mentioned that the second game had less tedious back-and-forth, but 3 simplifies things even further. Everything was very clear and straightforward, and the cases felt a lot faster as a result. I also found it easier to find entries for the touch list, but that might have been because the addition of Funghi Coins had me madly tapping everything in sight.

While it was nice not to get stuck, it might be a little too simple. The gameplay felt like it was lacking something. On the other hand, the charm and humor are as intact as ever, so it was still an enjoyable experience.

And I really do love the addition of the coins and figurines.

Touch Detective 3 left me with one big question: will there be a Touch Detective 4? There’s easily room for more wacky cases and silly antics with these characters. In fact, when I view the series with that in mind, I’ve changed my mind about the Cornstalker. I finished the second game thinking it was an odd omission to not have a big reveal of his true identity, but I’m now convinced it’s an intentional wink to the player to imply his identity while keeping it a secret from the characters, so that he can be a recurring antagonist who is never truly defeated.

Of course, it’s been 11 years since the original release of Touch Detective 3, so a fourth game seems unlikely. But since Touch Detective 3 + The Complete Case Files released just last year and brought in new fans like me, I’m crossing my fingers that we’ll see more Touch Detective games in the future!

Celebrating All Things Mysterious: Touch Detective 2 1/2

 Celebrating All Things Mysterious, Reviews, Video games  4 Responses »  Tagged with: ,
May 212025
 

As I mentioned when we discussed Touch Detective earlier this month, the Switch collection Touch Detective 3 + The Complete Case Files contains all three Touch Detective games and their bonus content.

So for our next mystery game this May, I moved on to the second game, Touch Detective 2 1/2.

Like the first game, Touch Detective 2 1/2 was originally released for the Nintendo DS and is built around the touchscreen, with an alternate control scheme using a cursor to simulate tapping the environment. It’s pretty much identical in structure to the first game, so check out my review of Touch Detective if you haven’t.

While the first game only had four cases, the second game has five… but although it’s a longer game, the pacing is faster. There isn’t quite as much back-and-forth, and objectives feel a bit more intuitive. As a result, I didn’t end this one feeling tired of the formula like I did after the first game.

It also adds a bit more of an overarching storyline, with a mysterious thief known as the Cornstalker who appears as an antagonist throughout the game.

The character interactions are as funny and enjoyable as in the first game, and while I thought the introduction of a new rival for Mackenzie in the form of Inspector Daria overshadowed Chloe’s role a little, they were both still entertaining enough that I didn’t mind.

One odd thing is that there are a few hints about the Cornstalker’s identity that are never resolved… but maybe they wanted to keep it open for speculation (or maybe the third game will touch on it).

Now, I was tempted to say this game isn’t quite as weird as the first one, but then I thought about the cases and realized I just got used to it instead. Or maybe playing D4 warped my perception of “weird.”

I had fun playing Touch Detective 2 1/2, so I’m even happier now that I decided to pick up Touch Detective 3 + The Complete Case Files. Will we get to the third game this May? Stay tuned!

Celebrating All Things Mysterious – D4: Dark Dreams Don’t Die

 Celebrating All Things Mysterious, Reviews, Video games  6 Responses »  Tagged with:
May 192025
 

Today we’re going to talk about D4: Dark Dreams Don’t Die. It’s hard to know where to even begin.

Its full title is technically D4: Dark Dreams Don’t Die – Season One. There will never be a Season Two.

D4 was directed and written by Hidetaka Suehiro, or Swery65, the man behind games like Deadly Premonition. It was developed by Access Games and published by Microsoft for Xbox One and PC. Season One contains the prologue and first two episodes, and Season Two was meant to continue it. But when Swery65 left Access Games, any chance of seeing Season Two vanished.

What’s left is a partial murder mystery with no solid answers and a cliffhanger ending, but while that means it doesn’t provide a lot of satisfaction plot-wise, it’s still worth playing for how utterly weird it is.

You play David Young, a detective whose wife was murdered under mysterious circumstances, leaving him with only her final words, “Look for D.” He can’t remember anything else that happened that night, but he gained the ability to travel back in time using certain key objects called mementos. By doing so, he hopes to learn the identity of “D” and possibly even undo his wife’s death.

The controls are very strange, most likely because it was designed for Kinect controls. You click certain areas to walk and click things in the environment to investigate them, but many actions are handled through motion – click a door and then swipe the cursor to the side to open it, grab a cup and swipe up to drink, click key spots during a fight to avoid taking damage, etc.

Everything you do costs stamina, which you can restore by eating food. Food you’ve eaten is recorded like a collectible, along with all the documents you can read and other interactions. If you really want every piece of lore and story, you’ll spend a lot of time in David’s house opening drawers, checking out books, and stumbling across memories of his wife, which gives it an almost slice-of-life feel when you aren’t back in time gathering clues. There are even small “side cases” that range from having dinner to taking a quiz on airplanes.

None of this is why I called it weird, by the way.

D4’s weirdness is hard to explain. If you’ve played Deadly Premonition, you probably have an idea of how weird it could be, but magnify that even further. Every second of D4 feels like insanity. It really is impossible to describe in words.

Fortunately, I’ve found some videos online.

I think that says it all.

I thoroughly enjoyed my time with D4: Dark Dreams Don’t Die – Season One, a surreal adventure game experience where anything could happen and be treated as normal and you never quite know what to expect.

While I’ve highlighted the weirder aspects here, I should also mention that the overarching mystery was pretty intriguing and I’d love to know what it was building up to. It’s a shame we’ll likely never get to see Season Two, but at least Season One still exists as a curious relic of what could have been.

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